| country | inflation_rate | exports_gdp_share | gdp_growth_rate | gdp_per_capita | adult_literacy_rate | primary_school_enrolment_rate | education_expenditure_gdp_share | measles_immunisation_rate | health_expenditure_gdp_share | income_inequality | unemployment_rate | life_expectancy | total_population | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0 | Afghanistan | NaN | 18.380042 | -6.240172 | 352.603733 | NaN | NaN | NaN | 68.0 | NaN | NaN | 14.100 | 62.879 | 41128771.0 |
| 1 | Albania | 6.725203 | 37.395422 | 4.856402 | 6810.114041 | 98.5 | 95.606712 | 2.74931 | 86.0 | NaN | NaN | 11.588 | 76.833 | 2777689.0 |
| 2 | Algeria | 9.265516 | 31.446856 | 3.600000 | 5023.252932 | NaN | 108.343933 | NaN | 79.0 | NaN | NaN | 12.437 | 77.129 | 44903225.0 |
| 3 | American Samoa | NaN | 46.957520 | 1.735016 | 19673.390102 | NaN | NaN | NaN | NaN | NaN | NaN | NaN | NaN | 44273.0 |
| 4 | Andorra | NaN | NaN | 9.563798 | 42350.697069 | NaN | 90.147346 | 2.66623 | 98.0 | NaN | NaN | NaN | NaN | 79824.0 |
WDI 2022 Report
Data Loading
In this section, I load the World Development Indicators dataset for 2022 (Bank 2022).
Exploratory Data Analysis (EDA)
This section explores GDP per capita, Life expectancy, and Inflation (CPI, annual %) for 2022.
1) GDP per capita (levels and distribution)
I examine summary statistics, missingness, and the distribution in both raw and log scales.
Missing values (gdp_per_capita): 14
count 203.000000
mean 20345.707649
std 31308.942225
min 259.025031
25% 2570.563284
50% 7587.588173
75% 25982.630050
max 240862.182448
Name: gdp_per_capita, dtype: float64
Summary — GDP per capita (2022)
- The distribution is highly right-skewed: most countries cluster below ~$20k, with a long tail of high-income economies.
- On a log scale, the distribution looks much closer to symmetric (roughly log-normal), which is typical for income variables.
- Interpretation: comparing countries on the log of GDP per capita (rather than raw USD) is more informative and reduces the influence of outliers.
2) Life expectancy (levels and relation to income)
I inspect the distribution of life expectancy and its relationship with income (diminishing returns expected), a pattern first described by Preston (Preston 1975).
Missing values (life_expectancy): 8
count 209.000000
mean 72.416519
std 7.713322
min 52.997000
25% 66.782000
50% 73.514634
75% 78.475000
max 85.377000
Name: life_expectancy, dtype: float64
Correlation (life expectancy vs log10 GDP per capita): 0.841
Summary — Life expectancy vs GDP per capita
- There is a strong positive association: the correlation with log₁₀(GDP per capita) is about 0.84 in the output.
- The slope flattens at higher incomes, consistent with diminishing returns (gains in life expectancy are large at low incomes and smaller at high incomes), this finding aligns with macroeconomic theories discussed by Mankiw (Mankiw 2019). .
- Takeaway: income is a powerful predictor of population health, especially among lower-income countries. —
3) Inflation (levels and relation to growth)
I examine inflation levels and its same-year association with GDP growth.
Missing values (inflation_rate): 48
count 169.000000
mean 12.493936
std 19.682433
min -6.687321
25% 5.518129
50% 7.967574
75% 11.665567
max 171.205491
Name: inflation_rate, dtype: float64
Correlation (GDP growth vs inflation): -0.140
Summary — GDP growth vs inflation (2022)
- The cross-section shows a weak negative correlation (≈ −0.14), and the scatter is very noisy.
- Several extreme-inflation outliers pull the pattern around; excluding them would likely make the relationship even weaker.
- Same-year cross-sectional comparisons don’t identify causality—growth and inflation dynamics are time-dependent; panel/time-series analysis would be more appropriate.
Visualisations
Top GDP per Capita (Bar Chart)
As shown in (Figure 5), high-income economies dominate the upper tail of GDP per capita in 2022.
Life Expectancy vs Income (Scatter)
In (Figure 6), life expectancy rises with income, with diminishing returns at high income.
Key Statistics Table
Table Table 1 summarizes the indicators used in the analysis and supports the distributional findings in Figure 2 and the relationship in Figure 4.
| count | mean | median | std | min | max | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| GDP per capita (USD) | 203 | 20,346 | 7,588 | 31,309 | 259 | 240,862 |
| Life expectancy (years) | 209 | 72.4 | 73.5 | 7.7 | 53.0 | 85.4 |
| Inflation rate (%) | 169 | 12.49 | 7.97 | 19.68 | -6.69 | 171.21 |
Interactive Dashboard
Use the controls to explore the 2022 indicators. The scatter updates live; the table below shows the filtered rows.
Interactive dashboard: filter and explore 2022 indicators.